The New Basseterre High School And The Aquifer By Earle Clarke: 14/06/2017

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If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michael Angelo painted or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well, that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say,”Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”  Martin Luther King jnr.

Dear reader, on the 16th February 2015, we foolishly erred and strayed when we elected a group of immature children to perform a man’s job of running our country. It was not even six months later that we realized how disastrously we had sinned and come up very short with the decision we made on that fateful day. Because of all the letters plastered behind their names, we sighed and we hoped beyond hope, that they would pull their socks up and try to redeem themselves somewhat by proving to us, that there is the faintest glimmer of hope in them; but, not even that they are capable of displaying. They cannot even prove to us that they are the best incompetent group of representatives a country has ever had the misfortune of electing.

The quotation above by Martin Luther King jnr. exhorts us to be the best at whatever we put our hands to, but not even this task they are capable of performing. Woe then, to our beloved country, our young children, and to us, its inhabitants! I therefore beg the question, “What is going to be the fate of our younger generation when they have been deprived of the foundations of a good, solid education in this day and age of modern technology, due to the incompetence of the infants we have elected, and the petty politics they are playing with the lives and the future of our present day school children? Just what will be their fate? What lies around the bend for them?

We seem to be taking the future of our children very lightly, but, if we are building a house and the foundation of that house is not properly laid, can we feel safe in such a building when the hurricane gale force winds begin to blow? With our children holed up in those makeshift buildings for a school, which lack computers, labs and all the other modern day equipments to enrich the minds of the young   students, would they be equipped to face the rigours of the job market when they leave school? In other words, with the present inadequate environment under which they exist, are we preparing them for the future to take over the reins of the government long after we have departed to our eternal home? Are we?

It is said that every generation has it better than the one before, but, would this be the case with this present generation who is attending the Basseterre High School? My children had it better than I did, because they were able to sleep on beds, had access to fridge and washing machines, flush toilets, free Secondary Education, University Education, good paying jobs, whilst I had to sleep on the floor and entered the job market as a store boy, cleaning out the store for $3.00 per week. Would the present state of affairs turn back the historical hands of the clock, thereby reversing all the gains and achievements that were made since my day? I am shuddering in my shoes when I am punched by the present day situation and the fate of my grand and great grand! Aren’t you trembling in your boots too?